In the past few ten years, positive outcomes for cancer treatment has been limitedly obtained in aspects of the treatment rate and functional preservations with the development of diagnostic and treatment technologies. However, five-year survival rate in a variety of progressive cancers was reported to be below 5-50%. These cancers are characterized by aggressive invasion, lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis and  secondary oncogenesis. Among them, some cancers have maintained their survival rates regardless of various studies and treatment on the cancers for the past 20 years. Recently, there has been an increasing attempt to enhance the treatment rate of cancer through molecular biological approaches to these cancers, and ardent studies on target treatments associated with cancer proliferation, metastasis and apoptosis have been in process. Active attempts regarding anticancer agents using natural extracts (derived from plants, the ocean and the like), antioxidants or the like as substances that can inhibit cancer. Korean market of anticancer agents reached a nationwide scale of about 2200 hundred million won in the year 2002, but increased to a nationwide scale of about 4900 hundred million won in the year 2006 with the explosive economic growth of 21.8% a year. The anticancer agents from the Korean pharmaceutical companies are wholly lacking, but all of the top 10 drugs have been on the market from foreign pharmaceutical companies, or through branch systems of the Korean pharmaceutical companies.
Researches that develop new substances and useful substances from natural substances have become the key field of fine chemistries and biotechnologies that are prerequisite for higher value-added businesses such as medical supplies, health supplements, etc. In consideration that one third of medical supplies that have recently come into the market are natural substances or their derivatives, it is considered that the natural substances are of industrial importance.